On AJR

First piece in our new AJR Forum on ancient medicine: "Asking the Right Questions in Roman Public Health"

Wazer: “Scobie and the Victorian sanitarians share a conception of what it means to write the history of Roman public health. Both organize instances of public action related to health into narratives of sanitary progress, always with modern standards in mind. Rome is understood to be either an admirable early forerunner of modern public sanitation, or — after Scobie — another example of how wrong-headed all pre-modern people were with regard to their own collective health. Such an approach necessarily simplifies the historical context of each period included in order to emphasize the narrative leading to the achievements of modern medicine. What is left out from such assessments of ancient public health is how Romans themselves understood the role of the state in their collective health.”